It was late afternoon when they reached the boundary between kingdoms and found the fairy godmother waiting for them. Her long blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders and she wore riding breeches under her thick fur coat. A carriage sat patiently in the road further back.
She turned to Cinderella, her expression hard to read in the encroaching gloom. ‘I see you realised the prince wasn’t the hero of your dreams after all.’ She smiled, and it was almost gentle. ‘I think you made the better choice.’ She walked round to the back of the cart, pausing to pat the donkey’s neck.
The sun broke through in streaks of reds and pinks leaving the sky stained as if with blood as the queen or fairy godmother or whoever she was stared into the back of the cart.
‘I’ll take it from here,’ she said.
With her hair loose around her pale cat-like features, Cinderella didn’t think the woman looked like a queen or a fairy godmother at all. She looked like a water witch from the legends her step-mother used to read to her, tales from the days of the dragons. She didn’t know whether to be afraid or in awe. Probably both.
‘And it will be as you said?’ the huntsman asked.
The queen nodded.
‘Let’s go,’ the huntsman muttered. ‘I’m done here.’
Cinderella thought of her huntsman cursed to become a mouse. She thought of the girl in the box and wondered how that story would end. She turned her horse around though, and as they rode away, leaving the icy queen and the frozen girl behind, she decided that for her that story was done. She had her own story to live. She looked at the handsome man beside her and smiled, before spurring her horse into a canter and heading into the woods.
14
‘Is that a spindle . . .?’
Rose had dyed her hair red for the wedding, and she found it suited her as well as fooling just about everyone that the prince was still marrying the same girl. After all, who had really paid any attention to Cinderella? The people had only seen her from a distance, and anyone in the court who might have realised something rather strange had gone on – that the girl walking down the aisle was taller and more buxom than the curly haired beauty they’d trained to walk and dance – knew well enough to keep their mouths firmly shut. The prince was married and that was all anyone needed to know.
She was content. She had never wanted love in the way that other girls sought it out. For some, love was needed for life; it kept their hearts racing with its ups and downs and desire for one person to make you complete. Rose had always felt complete, and what she wanted was to shape things. To make the kingdom better. The prince would be a good husband in his own way and as time passed she knew she would come to make most of the important decisions. It would work better for them both that way.
She looked out of the window and down to the courtyard below where lights still glittered in the trees and in the bushes of the maze beyond. There had been a sudden thaw, and although it was only just approaching the New Year spring had been in the air for the three days of festivities that had accompanied the royal wedding.
A figure standing in one of the maze paths caught her eye. He stood perfectly still, wearing a bright crimson jacket, and staring up at their bedroom window as if he could see her looking back, which she was sure was impossible. She frowned. What a strange man.
‘Darling,’ she murmured to the prince, who was changing his shirt for their dinner with the high council and king, ‘come and look at this. There’s a man in the maze.’ She squinted, trying to focus more closely. ‘What’s that on his back?’ He was carrying some kind of knapsack, but there was something sticking out of it. ‘Is that a spindle?’
The prince came alongside her.
‘Oh no,’ he said, his reflection in the glass pale as his eyes widened. ‘I didn’t think he’d find me.’
Rose’s heart sank a little. ‘What did you do?’
‘I made a deal,’ the prince said.
He was still talking but Rose wasn’t listening. She stared at the stranger, who stared directly back. She drew herself up tall and then took her handsome husband’s hand.
‘We’ll take care of it, dear,’ she said. ‘The thing about deals, you see, is that they can always be renegotiated.’
Perhaps her married life was going to be more interesting than she’d thought.
‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’
Epilogue
‘True love’s kiss . . .’
When the sound of hooves had faded the queen climbed up on to the cart and stared at the silent girl on the other side of the glass. ‘I just need to know,’ she whispered, before carefully opening the glass lid.
The forest was eerily still around them, as if even the winter wolves were holding their breaths.
Her heart raced as she leaned over the thin glass edge and pressed her lips against Snow White’s. They were warm and soft, and Lilith thought her heart might stop in that instant of sweetness. She thought of the cabinet where her own face would stare back from the enchanted mirror. She thought of the words it used to speak, tormenting her with the honesty of her innermost truths, ones she’d fought to deny for so long. She’d fought them for so long she’d confused love for hate.
‘Snow White, the fairest in all the lands.’
And she was. Beautiful, kind and desirable.
The girl in the box gasped, life flooding back to her violet eyes, and the sun burst through the clouds creating a rainbow above their heads. The queen sat back on her heels as the girl slowly took in her surroundings and sat up.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lilith said, eventually. They were inadequate words. But what else could she say. Her heart raced. She had her answer and it was one she should have seen so long ago.
‘I thought you hated me,’ Snow White said. ‘I only ever wanted you to love me.’
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Snow White reached out and pulled the queen forwards, kissing her again.
When they finally broke for air, they sat and smiled and Lilith thought of the wisdom of her great-grandmother’s curses. True love was the only true magic. The huntsman had earned his happiness. Just as she hoped they had earned theirs.
‘Let’s go home,’ she said, taking Snow White by the hand and helping her down from the dwarves’ cart.
The dark-haired beauty paused and smiled. ‘Are you wearing riding breeches?’ She slid her arm around the woman’s waist and they were a vision of light and dark and winter melted around them.
‘How did you wake me?’ she said.
‘True love’s kiss,’ the queen answered and the two beautiful women smiled at each other. ‘We should go home. We’ll pick up my great-grandmother on the way. I think she’s been causing a bit of trouble. She can go without children for a while.’
‘Children?’ Snow White asked.
‘Oh, you’ll understand when you see her house,’ the queen said. ‘But I should probably apologise for her in advance.’
‘I’m sure I’ll love her.’
And then they kissed again.
THE END
Also By Sarah Pinborough from Gollancz:
Poison
Charm
Beauty
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2013
Interior illustrations copyright © Val and Les Edwards 2013
All rights reserved.
The right of Sarah Pinborough to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2013 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 09304 1
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Charm Page 13